Doing Good: Store helps Children’s Shelter achieve mission

Rogers, Ark. (KNWA) — The Northwest Arkansas Children’s Shelter helps hundreds of abused kids every year with anything from basic needs to counseling and health care. Now, it has another resource to make sure these kids find hope for the future.

The Northwest Arkansas Children’s Shelter is getting ready for a party.

“We are having a celebration on march the 28th,” NWACS Board President Emily Reynolds said.

That will be the one-year anniversary of The Shelter Shop.

“We constantly look at our store and say, what can we do better? What can we fix? What can we make better? What can we ultimately do to make this stand out differently than your normal retail?” Shelter Shop manager Brandon Bulen said.

You can buy clothes, toys, furniture; all to help the shelter.

“Donations come in through vendors, through donors, through just anybody throughout the community in the NWA area and elsewhere. Anything that comes in is first and foremost for the kids at the children’s shelter,” Bulen said.

Any items not needed at the shelter are then sold and that money goes into the shelter too.

“For the meals, for the beds, for the education, for all of it that we provide as a whole at the shelter,” Bulen said.

That alone has had a big impact. But also, just the physical presence of the store has its benefits.

“When we tell people it’s actually for the children’s shelter, it usually drives them to a do a little more and then they want to talk about different things from the shelter,” Bulen said.

It makes people aware of our community’s needs.

“On average, year over year, we serve anywhere from 400 to 500 kiddos,” Reynolds said.

And now the shelter has more resources to help all of those children.

“It gives us the opportunity to have the outreach in the community and to let people know about the effects of child abuse,” Reynolds said.

The Shelter Shop said it could always use more volunteers. To get involved, click here.

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